


Sins and Virtues

by cornheck



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Gen, Modern AU, and she's fucking exhausted, lust is the group mom no one asked for but everyone needed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-24
Updated: 2019-05-17
Packaged: 2019-10-14 14:52:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17510705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cornheck/pseuds/cornheck
Summary: At first glance, senator Warner K. Bradley has the perfect life; a respectable marriage, a stately demeanor, and a stunning track record in policymaking. But his real family, a well-kept secret, lives five states away from the Capital. Under careful watch by their own brother, the Holmans live an ordinary existence, prohibited from discussing their relation to the popular congressman. As long as financial support is sent their way, it’s all they can do to keep a scandal from breaking in Washington.





	1. Displacement

**Author's Note:**

> As a reference and guide, because I've chosen to use names that suit the modern and non-magical era, here is a list of the characters present for a majority of the story (as well as their age, birth year, and occupation for consistency). Yes, I understand that Bradley is significantly older than his siblings but, for the sake of this story, I am going to say they are a family of half-siblings; same father, two mothers. Bradley and Lucy's mother is not the same as Graham/Avery, Evan, Sloan, Glen, or Percy's mom. We'll have plenty of chapters to unpack all of that, so just... sit tight, I guess.
> 
> Wrath is **Warner Bradley** (32, born in 1987), state senator), Father is **Ford Holman** (58, born in 1960, terrible dad), Lust is **Lucy Holman** (24, born in 1994, college graduate), Greed is **Graham Holman** (17, born in 2001, high school senior), Envy is **Evan Holman** (15, born in 2003, high school sophomore), Sloth is **Sloan Holman** (13, born in 2005, 8th grade), Pride is **Percy Holman** (10, born in 2008, 6th grade), and Gluttony is **Glen Holman** (7, born in 2011, 2nd grade). I'm more than aware that 'Pride' already had a human pseudonym, but I think I'd prefer to maintain the Homunculus' 'true' initials. I can only hope this choice doesn't make anything too complicated.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucy reflects on the events that led her family to their present state of being.

The Holman house is never quiet, even this early in the morning. Awake before six, Lucy was the orchestrator of the school-morning rush. With the way everyone’s routines happened to arrange themselves, weekday mornings often progressed in waves. The first wave was the easiest; Graham and Evan foregoing breakfast as they leave for the high school down the hill without a word to Lucy, or each other. The sole exception being the mornings when either of them is awake enough to make idle conversation which, more often than not, resulted in continued and relentless start-of-bickering. The second wave functioned to ensure Sloan, Glen, and Percy had everything packed, and breakfast eaten, to make it to the bus stop on time. Like any other morning, Lucy’s inner fretting and anxious nausea are easy to ignore as she worries, quietly, that one of them has forgotten something. From the outside looking in, one might call the instinct maternal in nature.

She had the third ‘wave’ of the morning to herself, especially when Father had better things to do. Only after the last of her youngest siblings took their leave could she finally think about getting ready for work, scavenging on the remains from breakfast: the oatmeal Percy never finished, the bagel Sloan toasted and forgot about, and the slices of banana Glen refused to touch. By eight o’clock, her early morning caught up with her. Despite her sore neck and straining eyes, Lucy moves through each bedroom of the house collecting laundry and straightening out beds. Just about all of them, save for Percy’s, were in some manner of disarray. Clothes on the floor and sheets twisted in a bunch at the foot of each mattress. Apart from the room shared by Sloan and Glen, Evan’s was the worst-off—but she’s careful not to disturb too much. In the chaotic mess, it looked as if half their wardrobe had been purged. More spilled out onto the floor than what remained inside the closet on hangers. Folding clothes and making the bed is all Lucy cares enough to meddle with. Dishes. Laundry. Shower. With most of the house empty, the remainder of her morning could be done on autopilot.

The fourth wave came well past ten o’clock, when Mr. Holman finally emerges from his room to fix himself something to eat prior to, once more, made himself scarce in the confines of the master bedroom. The last time Lucy had ventured into his room in the same manner she did her siblings’, she’d found the walls covered in thermal insulation. It looked like the inside of a lunch bag. Had the windows been left uncovered, she was certain the glare from the light would’ve been too much to bear. Anymore, Lucy avoids even the slightest of glances into it; an easy accomplishment, considering how often his door remains closed. A wonder it was, to live with a man and, yet, not know him. Even more curious, it was, to have such a man for a father.

After noon, as she takes the time to change for work, the long, electronic ringing of the landline echoes twice through the house. After a brief encore of buzzing, the tone stutters for a moment and ceases entirely when Father picks up the receiver. From her own room in the basement, Lucy can only make out a muffled portion of the conversation before she hears her name from the top of the stairwell.

“Lucy,” her father beckons. “The high school is calling me.” He doesn't wait for her to reply before he adds, "You know I can't deal with this right now."

“One second,” she pleads. Donning black, her work-shoes tucked under her arm, she came hastily back up the stairs to take the phone. “Hello,” she answers, Father sauntering back to his room as he’s freed from the obligation to handle the children’s affairs.

“I’m calling from Westgrove High School, we have Evelyn in the nurse’s office and we were hoping someone could take her home, whether that be you or—”

“E van’s in the office?” She squints, nestling the phone between her cheek and shoulder as she sits down against the wall to tie her shoes. She’s not in such a hurry anymore. Loosening her laces one at a time, she awaits an answer to her question .

“Oh, right…” she whispers, “That’s right. Evan, Evan ...” On the other end, the secretary pauses for some time. Lucy can hear her clicking her tongue and then continuing, “We’d like to know if you could make time to take Evan home.”

“Why do they need to come home?” Lucy repositions the receiver in her hand, relaxing her shoulder. “Are they sick?”

“We think it would be best if we sent…  _ Evan  _ home, yes.”

Lucy sighs, her brows furrowed together, “Can I speak to them?”

“One moment,” the secretary steps away, the line rustling faintly. In the silence, Lucy rose from where she sat, tucking her uniform polo into her slacks and minding the creases. “Here,” she says, a faint gulp heard on the other end.

“Hey, Luce,” Evan groans.

“Are you faking?” Lucy doesn’t hesitate to ask.

“What? No,” they insist. She waits for them to continue, but wasn’t treated with an explanation.

“Can’t you wait a couple hours until school’s out?”

“I-I mean… I can, but,” Evan’s breathing sounds labored through the phone, their voice quaking. “I thought that… maybe you could come, get me, ‘n t-take me home before you go to work.”

A pause falls over the line.

“Sorry,” Evan adds. “Sis, I-”

“It’s… it’s okay, I can come get you,” Lucy sighs again and raises her hand to her chin to rest her face in her palm. She nods to herself, “You’d better have all your homework, though, I’m not going to be the one responsible if you didn’t take home something you should’ve.”

“Yeah, don’t worry,” Evan answers, “I got all that shit from the office already.”

She opts not to reprimand them for the casual swearing, despite the instinct. “Okay, yeah, I’ll… be there soon,” Lucy assures, taking Evan’s mumbled words of gratitude over the phone as she ends the call.

Evan doesn’t have long to wait, lying on the stiff cot in the office, before Lucy arrives. They could hear her from down the hall, the front desk being a thin wall away from the dimly lit nurse’s office at the front end of the school. It’s not their intention, but they sit there, frozen still, as they listen for their sister’s approaching footsteps.

“Hey,” she invites herself to sit on the edge of the plastic-covered bench. It could hardly be called a bed, even by generous description, but Lucy was able to find room for herself, regardless. She presses the back of her hand to Evan’s forehead without preamble. “You don’t feel feverish.” They gasp, the contact eliciting a jerk of their shoulders.

“Probably because I don’t have a fever,” Evan gripes. “I got cramps and I threw up, Lucy, it’s not the flu.”

She has to resist the urge to groan at their petulance. “Can you walk?”

“Yeah,” they grunted. It took them a moment to sit up, slowly raising themself on their arms, “I’m good.” Evan swung their legs over, planting their feet on the floor and hobbling alongside Lucy as they departed, the secretary waving them off.

She’d parked close, in the fire lane, and she’s lucky not to find a ticket on her windshield when she returns. Being the rare occasion the van was empty, Evan takes the opportunity to finally nab the passenger seat Graham stole when he wasn’t already stealing the van itself. Its interior, for the most part, is orderly and inoffensive. Being the vehicular second-home of five children doesn’t lend the most pristine mental image. The smell is tolerable and the air conditioning works when it’s supposed to, but one would be ill-advised to think the lack of trash and crumbs made the car a ‘clean’ one by any working definition.

Lucy doesn’t say anything as she starts the car. Evan eyes her fingertips, drumming on the steering wheel as she waits at each stop. As convenient as it was living on the cusp of a school zone, the temptation to run through four-ways has a powerful thrall. Stopping at one sign just to drive another twenty feet and stop at another, Lucy has to hold her breath and exhale hard to keep her impatience from manifesting in her, otherwise smooth, driving. The pair of them are well-along on the road home when Evan finally entertains an exchange of words.

“Is it too late to be homeschooled?” Evan asks, gaze fixed on the grassy shoulder of the road where asphalt met gravel-trampled weeds.

Assumptions and suspicions galore race through her mind. How could she be expected to answer such a preposterous question? Was she supposed to entertain it seriously? Are they being harassed? Evan’s grades looked fine the last she’d checked, did they have social anxiety? Had they dropped since last week? Were they depressed? If they don’t get their way–if she refuses the option to homeschool them–would they wind up giving up on high school altogether, or were they posing this question as some kind of joke?

Lucy hesitates to respond, sternly gnawing at the inside of her cheek. “...So you  _ were _ faking,” she presumes, breathing roughly through her nostrils. 

“No,” they protest. “I really did get sick... okay? It’s unrelated.”

“I can’t homeschool you, and neither can Dad,” she retorts.

“Wh-no, but I could do all of it online, I-I could finish early… and-”

“I don’t want you home when Dad’s around,” Lucy continues, seeming damn-near determined to shoot him down with every potential reason she can dig up. “It’s not-”

“Then I won’t get in his way,” Evan interrupts her before she can finish, still making an effort to persuade her. “I’ll… I’ll stay in my room or… o-or go to the library,” they persist.

“I said no , Evan,” she clenches her teeth to keep from gripping the steering wheel too firmly.

“You don’t have to talk to me like I’m your kid,” they argue “You’re not my mom.”

“No. I’m not,” she says. “But Mom can’t be your mom right now so I’m making the decisions.”

They look at her, and Lucy’s steely gaze. After a moment of quiet, the only noise heard being the hum of the road, Evan murmured, “You’re supposed to be my sister.” Evan doesn’t say anything more.

She wants to tell them, I know. She wants to say, I’m still your sister–I’m still your sister , but she doesn’t. As much as she wants to believe she’s still one of them, the stakes have changed. Someone had to step up and be the parent. Someone needed to make the appointments, arrange the meetings, and keep them out of trouble. If not her, then who?

“I’m sorry,” she apologizes, clearing her throat. Behind her driving shades, Lucy’s eyes begin to water. “It’s just not going to happen.” She fights the jostle of the van’s bumpy axel to keep her tears from spilling, blinking quickly in the hope they might dissipate as she pulls back into the driveway.

Evan can’t discern, now, if the nausea they feel in the pit of their stomach is guilt or another wave of cramps, but the urge to utter an apology of their own almost outweighs the desire to stay silent. For all they could muster up nothing they thought to say felt like it would mend anything. So they remain silent. They’d done enough damage, already.

When she comes back with Evan, there’s no sign Father had left his room since Westgrove called. Lucy carries Evan’s bag, following them as they slink up to their room without a word.

“Do you need anything?” she asks. “I’ve got some Midol if you want it.”

“I’m fine,” they dismiss her with a limp hand, slowly retreating to bed. “I don’t want to take that stuff.”

Briefly, she holds back a laugh. It’s hard to resist chuckling when they bolster their strength with that kind of lukewarm machismo. “Alright,” Lucy surrenders their backpack at the foot of their bed, “suit yourself. Do you want the door open or not?”

“Closed,” Evan huffs, kicking off their shoes and pulling their feet under the comforter with the rest of themself. She leaves them to rest and gently closes the door, hovering just past the threshold before drifting back to the basement to fetch the rest of her things.

For Lucy, the night ends on a quiet note. As closing time crept nearer, patrons drifting out of the restaurant took on an even slower gait, dragging on in some vain attempt to make their stay last longer. It’s in the moments like this, when the world seems to move in slow motion, that it becomes so easy to remember her life before now. The sounds of NPR hosts droning on, like a white noise machine, from the line cook’s phone only assists in jogging her memory.

This hadn’t always been her life. Only a handful of years ago, everything was different. The Holmans had transplanted themselves in the midwest, against their will and best judgement, so as not to interfere with the political game their eldest brother was hell-bent on playing; their own brother, Warner K. Bradley, the young Rhode Island senator with approval ratings sure to make any campaign planner swoon. The picture of moderate conservatism, he chose his words like he was playing chess. With a dark and methodical mind like his, was it ever a question – the lengths to which he would go to erase his ‘addict of a mother’ and unhinged father from the picture? Erasing them–dislocating them–had been a campaign strategy from the start. Smart, but foul. The youngest of their brothers may still be none the wiser, but Lucy understood the rotten tactic. Warner could dress it up as nicely as he liked, give them a home, an income, a respectable school district for their kid-siblings, all while he basked in the praise of his perfection.

Even his marriage, she suspected, was an act fit for the stage. Warner hadn’t even bothered to inform them he’d gotten hitched. They never had the chance to meet his new spouse, an average-faced housewife with a fake smile sharp enough to cut glass. He was their brother one day and a poster child for the Republican candidacy the next. The family who appeared alongside him on the front pages for his swearing-in has been his wife’s. White, married Christians with a disdain for civil liberties, and he was just the same. But whether his bigotry was pretend or not, Lucy couldn’t tell. Perhaps his proposals were restrained translations of his true intentions in office. Or, more unlikely, he sustained them despite his own liberalism. Regardless, Lucy had long since given up on her brother’s redemption.

It was true, they weren’t living in squalor anymore. They could afford groceries. They lived in a good-neighborhood kind of house, not jumping back and forth between the apartments Lucy called home when she was Evan’s age. As long as his power-grab for government office remained scandal-free, with the Holmans out of the way, Warner K. Bradley would ensure money–more money than they’d ever been capable of making with Lucy as their breadwinner–would be invested in their wellbeing. But she knew he didn’t consider them family. They were a threat; a threat to his goals and a threat to his public image. They would be kept happy, healthy, and out of his way for as long as he could manage it. As the last of her tables leaves for the night, the bell above the door chiming as they go, Lucy emerges from her bitter reminiscing with a breath.

Her place of employ, a bistro just outside the downtown limits, was kept staffed with a few, aimless twenty-somethings at the end of the night. The servers who hadn’t already finished their shift numbered three in total; Jean Havoc, Rose Thomas, and herself.

Turning the key in the entrance-door handle as the last patron left, Jean looks to her, “Bet you wish it weren’t a school night, huh?” he asks, the grin a welcome irritant.

“Hours are hours, I’ll take my sweet time closing if you won’t narc,” she grunts, chewing her lip. “So, are you going to mop, or am I doing that tonight?” Lucy tilts her head questioningly. Havoc shakes his head.

“I’ll get all that, just balance the register,” Jean instructs, turning out the dining room lights. “I’m no good with numbers,” he notes.

Lucy turns, wringing her hands as she keeps to the task, pressing her fingertips into the keypad and waiting for the machine to spit out the cash-drawer. In the low light, especially after hours, the stains on the countertops are practically invisible. It’s a good thing, she thinks, no one sees the state of this place in the daylight. Rose and the kitchen staff conduct the satisfying clicks of light switches upon leaving as Lucy straightens bills out in her palm, tediously pinching their paper corners so they laid down flat. One on top of the other, she muttered as she counted–hundreds, fifties, twenties, tens, fives, and ones–laying everything in one stack while Havoc flushes out the espresso machine. The floors now damp with a thin layer of soapless water, not that Lucy had done anything to stop him. When the first shift came in the morning, they wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. Steam hisses from the messy contraption of chrome pipes on the counter behind the servers’ station, Havoc standing awkwardly out of the torrent’s range to keep his hand from burning. Stealing a peek at the kitchen through the door to the back, it was evident she and Jean were left alone to close.

“The drawer’s balanced,” she remarks, delivering the zippered banking pouch to the office in the back.

“You should take some of the brown mugs home,” she hears Jean suggest as she returns to the front counter. “We’re getting new ones tomorrow and they’re gonna be donated,” he smiles, tucking one of them into a plastic bag with the rest of his salvaged leftovers.

“I’ve already stolen so many of them on accident,” Lucy grins in kind. “I don’t think I need any more than that,” she says, retiring her apron to the kitchenside hamper.

“You want any breadsticks? I can’t eat all of these by myself,” Jean snickers.

“No thanks,” she declines, shaking her head once more. Once her apron came off, she didn’t bother fixating any more on work and wasted no time reaching for her purse on the servers’ station hook to find purchase in her keys. It was like second nature, Lucy’s fingers happily catching the loop of the keyring. “You want a ride home?” she asks, gaze fixed on his.

“Well,” Jean smirks, “How could I deny such a generous offer?”


	2. Safe House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Evan and Graham strike a deal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you want to connect the dots between character names introduced, here, Graham's friends are the chimera folks and they feel pretty self-explanatory. Just connect the first letter of their names.

It’s in the early hours of the next morning Lucy finds herself back home, the creaking of the automated garage door signaling to Graham that he’s been lying awake, yet again staying up far past a reasonable hour. If not now, then by morning he’s sure Lucy will have figured out he avoided doing the dishes… and making dinner. It could be surmised, from any rational judgement, that he couldn’t care less about shouldering the same responsibilities as his sister. As if he were averse to emotions other than apathy or disdain, it was true that he acted as if he didn’t care at all. In the silent moments between the closing of the garage door and the jangling of Lucy’s keys in the deadbolt lock, Graham’s heart skips a beat.

The sensation, he translates, is a feeling of remorse that draws him from bed all the way to the hall outside his door before he stops, listening as she walks straight to the basement. There is a moment of hesitation, Graham feels, when he fights the instinct to hide his shame; return downstairs and do what he neglected to hours ago as quietly as possible. But he doesn’t move. Instead, he paces the length of the hallway floor, nudging the doors he passes. Evan’s is shut completely, and he doesn’t resist assuming that it’s locked. Percy and Sloan keep theirs ajar, Graham’s hand gently pushing them open on his slow walk back down the corridor. Glen’s is left wide open, the glow of a night light casting warmth on the floor. 

Before he can bring himself to lay back down in his own bed, Graham stops short at the closed bathroom door, rapping his knuckles lightly against the lacquered wood. Casting his eyes to the floor, he watches the shadow cast by the light above the mirror from inside shift, the door locking a moment later with a click.

“Hey,” he groans, his tone dejected. Graham’s voice adopts a gentler volume upon continuing, “Who’s in here?”

The door handle clicks once more, hollowly this time, as the door opens a crack, just enough for a sliver of light to leak through.

“I’m about to take a shower,” says Evan, who promptly closes the door once again. They hover on the other side, Graham notes, probably holding it shut.

“Is that code for something?” Graham asks. No answer. “It’s two-thirty in the morning, you can’t just wait four more hours?” his brows cross in confusion.

He hears them sigh, “You can’t just go back to sleep and leave me alone?” Evan asks, pushing in, once more, the lock on the doorknob with another, reassuring click.

There’s a twinge he feels that can only be compared to resentment. Perhaps it was the fact they were doing something about their restlessness that Graham finds himself jealous of, wishing he had half the will to do something other than lying still on his back and idl wait for sleep to overtake him.

“What if I had to actually use the bathroom?” he crosses his arms.

“Tough tits, go piss in a cup,” Evan grumbles. The dull rustling of fabric half-convinces Graham of their intentions but, at the same time, he still can’t pull himself from the chance to waste time chatting. It was always easy with Evan. They were so fun to pester, closer to his age than the rest of them. It just made sense.

“Are you okay?” He asks, “Are you tweakin’ out?”

Evan snorts, “What the fuck does that mean?”

“Are you high ?” Graham prods, straightening his back against the door jamb.

“No,” They reply, “I just can’t sleep.”

On this, the facts were mutual. Three years in this house and it still didn’t feel quite like ‘home,’ certainly not one he could dream from. He’d wasted more hours staring up at  his bedroom ceiling than he had actually spent sleeping.

Grumbling quietly, he asks, “Should I be concerned?”

“No,” Evan attests, the doorknob clicking once more as they open it. The light pokes through again, through the tiny slit in the threshold. “You don’t worry about me, anyway, what’s different about it now?”

Graham narrows his eyes. What was the point in trying to live up to Lucy’s unattainable caregiver status if no one trusted him enough to let him make the effort? Not that much had changed, in any case, since Warner started on his political ascent. He was still stuck in high school, he still had a job, though he would never have to put it toward the electric bill as long as their brother held public office, and he still resented his brother. While it was true, they now lived comfortably, the hardship they endured growing up hadn’t disappeared. It had simply transformed, as if it’d been repurposed. Their debts, truancy warnings, and the countless voicemails from the IRS had only been replaced with restrictions and surveillance. The difference between then and now was smoke and mirrors. 

On sleepless nights, Graham wonders what the true sacrifice had been for a so-called better life. He and Evan didn’t share a room with Sloan, their little brothers weren’t going to starve, and none of them would have to scrape by any longer. But the cost of it all had been their silence; their complicity, the surrender of autonomy, altogether. The Holman family would become as ordinary as they were invisible. As long as he lived, Warner K. Bradley could allow no stains nor shining marks upon his reputation, no criminals nor valedictorians among his siblings.

When lost in thoughts like these, Graham found himself yearning for public servitude just to spite him, making contributions to the chaos of political unrest by kicking up a dust storm. Whatever Bradley was doing in Washington, he thought, it couldn’t possibly be good.

Though he returned to bed and left Evan to their devices, he can’t remember when it was that he finally fell asleep, only waking again at seven-thirty. He goes through the motions, his routine quick and simple, Evan leaving out the Garage side-door as Graham followed ten paces behind. For nearly a block, he keeps his silence and distance until halting at the crosswalk at the opposite end of the street, waiting for the traffic lights to change.

Standing next to them, it was easier to get a better look at their face. With a knitted cap tugged down over their head, changing the silhouette they tended to maintain, he thinks he might have been unable to recognize them if they hadn’t left home together. With weather this clement, the choice was suspect.

“What’s with the hat?” he asks, hand already reaching for the puckered seam of it at the back of Evan’s head, giving it a tug before they can protest.

Their hair, dark-brown tendrils that once fell over the back of their shoulders, tumbled down just past the bottoms of their ears, now damp and green. Eyes alight with anger, Evan gives their brother a hardy shove as he laughed, stealing back the cap with ease now that he’d been comically stunned by the sight of them.

“Ooh , shit, you really outdid yourself,” Graham snorts, regaining his composure. “Green, huh? Bold choice,” he snickers, “I know I said you were ugly before, but I think this is called a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

“It’s supposed to be blue,” they groan, tucking it all neatly back into the beanie’s snug recesses. “I should’ve shaved it off,” Evan notes, pulling the edge down to their eyebrows.

“You didn’t fry it did you?” Graham asks, though his question goes unanswered. Evan races forward as the walk-signal glows, their brother still hushing his laughing as he runs to catch up, “You really think they’re going to let you wear that hat in class?”

“Who says I’m going to class?” they huff, turning the next sidewalk corner as the high school parking lot came into view.

“So you’re skipping because you botched a dye job?” he asks. “I mean… not to pass judgement, I’ve played hooky for some petty shit, too,” Graham mumbles. He’s tempted to accuse them of making uncharacteristic decisions before realizing how out-of-character their impulsiveness has already made them.

“It’s about more than just that,” Evan sighs. “Anyway, I already went home sick yesterday, I didn’t have to convince the school of much,” they clear their throat again, re-adjusting the hem of the beanie to stretch down past their ears, their pacing slowing.

Graham persists beside them, still probing for answers, “Where are you gonna go, then, if you’re not going to school?” he asks.

“I don’t know, I’ll figure it out,” they answer, trying to out-step their brother, just shy of running. This had been only their second carefully-calculated sick day. Lucy and Westgrove were none the wiser. These escapes were a rare treat, after all. They would have to make it worthwhile.

He grunts, “Well, that’s no good, now you’re tempting me to skip just to show you how it’s done,” Graham admits. “There’s an abandoned school house in Westport that my friends and I have been dying to check out,” he offers.

“You have friends?” Evan sneers, almost chuckling, forcing a smile to accompany the sarcasm. He had friends, of course. More friends than  _ they  _ had to show for, by comparison; friends of Graham’s that they’d even had the ‘pleasure’ of meeting a few times before.

“Yes,” he huffs, “and  _ my  _ friends aren’t chickenshit.”

The closer they creep to the crosswalks ahead, overlooking the high school parking lot, the more tempting it is to run the remaining length of the block, as if motivated by the instinct to flee. Evan resists.

“So… what, you want to go wander around in an abandoned building with your friends, and that’s fun for you?” they ask.

He tucks his hands into his front pockets, shuffling along beside them, “There aren’t any good places to tag in the suburbs, so, yeah, it  _ is  _ fun,” Graham retorts. “And it sure beats hotboxing in Marty’s car.”

Their pace hastens as they finally pass by the view of the high school, “Why do you need so many places to smoke? They’re not even convenient hideouts,” Evan remarks, only turning back to watch as their brother continues by their side.

He follows them, “Weed is best-smoked socially. Not that you’d know,” Graham answers.

Evan trudges along. Truthfully, they don’t entirely oppose their brother’s offer. Though they hadn’t met often, Graham’s friends were, at least, smoother around the edges than their classmates were. Despite their gruff dispositions and just how inappropriate they judged their respective ages to be, the people Graham chose to surround himself with were far more tolerable than high-school kids and their inflated egos. The thirty-something biker named Ulysses who was addressed simply as ‘The Gator’ and Russell, the grey-haired divorcee, were regular townies who lived their entire lives within the city limits.

Their age alone had Evan raising eyebrows at their motivations, asking themself what they could possibly gain from any kind of interaction with their brother. Drug dealing was the only explanation that made any clear sense, and it wasn’t as if they hid it in their presence. Evan knew half of them dealt in the pill trade when they couldn’t sell weed. Martha, who went exclusively by Marty, was nineteen and one of the few who Evan had actually met and taken some liking to, even if the skunk-stench of hash permeated her clothes. Her roommates were Dane and Bill, not too far-off in age. Lucy didn’t know about any of them, of course. Not that she needed to. Graham could take care of himself, it was merely by the conditions of their contractual agreement with Warner that he didn’t.

Had it been up to him, Graham would’ve likely become an emancipated minor and found himself a better job. He once rambled, to Evan, while high that he’d drop out of high school and take the GED test, get the certification and go find himself a job to slave away at all day—all to put a bunch of money in savings upfront before finding himself a better place to live than subletting with Marty. Having such a menagerie of friends had its benefits, they supposed. As far as they could intuit, Russ was either a contractor or a landlord and The Gator was the proud owner of a dive bar in the West Bottoms. As for the other three, Marty held down two cashier jobs, Dane washed dishes, and Bill, last they met him, talked at great lengths about becoming an electrician’s apprentice.

They keep walking forward, gaze focused-in on the crosswalk at the end of the next street, though they weren’t quite sure where it was they were planning on going. Just as far away as they can walk and still make it home late enough so as not to arouse suspicion.

“Okay, well… I don’t smoke,” Evan replies, “and I’m not interested in joining you, either.”

“What does that matter?” Graham asks, though he receives nothing more than a shrug from Evan in response. “I bet Marty could redo your hair,” he says.

They raise their head, eyes wide at the prospect of ridding themself of their mistake. Their brother had a certain way of carrying himself that made him indispensable. Even with his irritating personality, he had a mind for reading people. This hadn’t been the only time he’d deciphered Evan’s needs. Regardless of how aware of his tactics they were, Evan had to admit there wasn’t anything else they’d rather spend their skip-day doing.

Graham wastes no time in following up, “You and I could hit up CVS for some better dye to cover it up with and walk to Marty’s, no problem,” he proposes.

There’s a moment before they turn, Evan’s eyes cast down at their feet, when they contemplate what it is, exactly, he’ll want in exchange. 

“If you skip, won’t Lucy know?” they ask. “It’s not like you’re going to have a good excuse for missing school,” Evan adds. As superior as they feel, having mapped out the perfect window of opportunity for themself, they can’t very well boast to their brother about it. He’d managed to pull off something like this plenty of times before, like a regular Ferris Bueller. The kind of stunt they’re pulling is dwarfed in comparison to his accomplishments.

“Well, I was thinking we might have a little exchange of goods n’ services,” Graham says. “Since you called the school and excused yourself, pretending to be Lucy, I don’t see why you can’t do the same for me.”

Evan gulps, staring down at the ground before meeting Graham’s eyes as they kneaded the corner of their lip in their jaws, “And you’re sure Marty’s okay with it?”

“She’s never not, really… I think she’s got a soft spot for you, if I’m being honest” Graham answers.

Though he doesn’t bother to elaborate, he knows somewhere in Marty’s psyche, she can’t help but see herself in the Holmans. If there had been anything he learned well from a lifetime of experience, it was that the only people who seemed to care about the poor were other poor folks. Like a fraternity of the disadvantaged.

“C’mon,” Graham gives them a nudge.

“Okay,” Evan sighs, nodding. It seemed a fair trade. “Give me your phone, I left mine at home,” they ask, a hand outstretched.

“Did you do that on purpose?” he asks, though he reaches for his phone and hands it to Evan anyway.

They nod again, “Yeah, they’re pretty easy to track,” Evan says, stumbling some with the school’s digits by memory.

“Paranoid,” Graham remarks, “but smart,” he says, watching as Evan puts the receiver to their ear, one arm cradled under the other while they place the call.

Before the secretary has a chance to pick up, they clear their throat and hum lightly for a moment, a kind of vocal litmus test. The conversation from then on was formal, quick, and one-sided, Evan maintaining the same feminine cadence as their sister to an astonishing likeness. From the other side of the line, Graham can only imagine how much more uncanny the similarities are.

“Thank you for understanding... Goodbye,” they finish, hanging up. Before they return their brother his phone, they clear the collection of sent calls in the guise of covering their tracks. In reality, they weren’t sure any of their second-guessing actually masked much of anything. Regardless, they clear out the device’s sent calls and hand it back.

“That was quick,” he praises. “You must be in a hurry to start enjoying a real day off with me, huh?”

Evan paces forward ahead of him on the sidewalk, “I did you a solid, now you owe me what you promised.” They say nothing else, obliging Graham’s directions en-route to the drugstore. 

Ahead of their arrival, Graham sends word to Marty on their plans: ‘ _ gonna stop by ur house around 10 with evan _ ,’ he texts, ‘ _ do u know how to dye hair?? _ ’

 

The trek is an easy one, from the street corner to the store and then, from there, to Marty’s address; a one-story house shared three ways between herself, Dane, and Bill. Graham raps his knuckles against the front door, Evan standing behind him in silence, cheap painted metal clanging with each knock.

As they wait on the dilapidated stoop, Evan’s eyes wander to the wooden siding, stained a deep russet to mask the mold scars and moisture-warped swelling, a disconnected garden hose lying limp in the empty flower bed like a dead snake to the right of the front door. The corner where the concrete steps met the foundation’s base was dark and discolored, dead weeds poking out from bone-dry dirt. They figured a hedge ought to be planted there, just to cover up the ugly exterior.

Footsteps approach the door before it opens, Marty standing just inside. Wearing as little as she can get away with, the first thing that draws Evan’s eyes is the body of the snake tattoo wrapped about her thigh past the sawed-off hem of her shorts.

“The door was unlocked,” she says. “You could’ve just invited yourselves in,” Marty steps back, Graham following as he holds the door for Evan.

“I didn’t know who else might be home,” he replies. “Can Evan come in?”

“Uh, yeah, obviously,” Marty waves a beckoning hand, her back to them as they enter and stand just inside the doorway.

“They kinda… botched their own dye job,” Graham prefaces. Evan sheds the hat, revealing the mess they’ve managed to make of their own hair. “We were hoping you might be able to fix it.”

Marty purses her lips, drawing them into one corner of her mouth as she turns to look at them, “I might,” she pauses with her hands on her hips.

“We brought you some black dye to use,” Graham clarifies.

“Yeah,” Marty interjects, “I think that’ll do just fine. Come on, I’ll set you up,” she tilts her head in the direction of the hall that extended past the front sitting room.

“I’ll hang here, then,” Graham mutters, making himself at home on the couch and spreading out.

Slipping the shoes from their feet in the foyer, Evan briefly stumbles after her. She leads them to the bathroom, banking right of the bedrooms, and Evan sheds the backpack from their shoulders to purge it of the CVS bag tucked inside. Marty pulls a pair of stained towels from the bathroom cupboard, ushering Evan in as they stand awkwardly in the doorway.

“Alright, then,” she begins, “Let’s take care of this.”


	3. The Dealer's Hand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With his old army buddy, Hawkeye, former U.S. Marshal Roy Mustang is sent to Kansas City and discovers more than he intended about his former commanding officer.

The desk of Roy Mustang sat tucked away in a comfortable alcove of the Russell Senate Office Building, barren of personal effects. Though he’d spent three years, now, staffing for Bradley, the habits of his old occupation were hard to shake. In the U.S. Marshals Service, he didn’t have the time to settle down at a desk. To him, the stationary life was a distant stranger. As different as they were, the job he’d left for this one had one thing in common with it; having the rank of Colonel meant something. It had sway. It commanded respect. But when his—albeit former—General called on him to serve him in Washington, there had been no room for negotiation. 

Despite his young age, or perhaps because of it, Mustang’s accomplishments preceded him. An office job, though it was, working for Bradley was rarely bland. Since being broached with the prospect of working for him in the first place, Roy suspected his loyalties were being tested. After all, what politician doesn’t have something to hide? Compared to the rest, the skeletons in Bradley’s closet seemed tame at best, the kinds of loose ends that didn’t need tying. Or, that’s what he thought before today. 

In the midst of hammering away at email correspondence, a call came in from up the line that his presence was requested in Kansas City. Given the circumstances, the change of location was almost too conspicuously benign. With the Senator on the verge of announcing his plans for the presidential race in the coming months, the peculiarity of the last-minute assignment felt like he’d been dealt a wildcard. It’d never been his place to question his superiors, but that hadn’t stopped him before. Something was festering on Capitol Hill and, some days, it seemed as if Roy Mustang was the only one who could smell it.

 

After a straight-shot flight from Dulles to Charles B. Wheeler, he waited for his contact. As the other staffers told him, he’d catch a ride from someone in the Bureau, an agent from the Kansas City field office, though he couldn’t fathom why. More and more, this assignment resembled an investigation, obscured by the campaign frenzy looming over the capitol like a haze. Everything about it, cautiously shrouded in ambiguity, provoked a sick feeling in his gut that refused to be quelled. 

The car sent for him was just as suspiciously mundane. Trying to make sense of it all, Mustang could only think of his reassignment as a distraction from Washington and the seniors he’d only had a few years to alienate. It must have frightened them, and perhaps emasculated those white men in suits, to think that a man half their age had all the connections he needed to topple their house of cards in a single breath. They knew the only way to get a hound off their tracks was to ship it halfway across the country. It was a smart move on their part. Phoning D.C. with further questions would only make him the target of distrust and, with his own motives at risk, the confidence of his peers was something Roy couldn’t afford to lose just yet. For just a moment, as the passenger-side window of the grey sedan retracted, Mustang almost forgot about his pursuit.

“You look like you could use a ride,” said the driver. Albeit veiled behind a pair of wide sunglasses, the sound of her voice was unmistakable. With the same blonde hair still tucked back into that protocol-adhering bun, he recognized her instantly.

“Lieutenant Hawkeye,” Roy chuckled.

Riza lowered the frames of her shades down the bridge of her nose, laying bare eyes on the flight-worn Colonel as she detected an expression of relief upon his face. Hawkeye lifted a brow, “That’s Special Agent, to you,” she smirked. “Get in. I’ll catch you up,” Hawkeye invited, leaning across the passenger-side seat with ease to pop open the door. Roy took hold of the window’s edge, ducking into the sedan and shutting the door firmly behind him. A moment after fumbling with the seatbelt, Riza pulled back onto the thru-street exit and departed for Westport with Mustang in tow.

Though he smiled, it was now that Mustang understood the weight of his search for truth. Roy couldn’t be sure, whether it was the senior staffers—or Bradley, himself—pulling the strings, but he was damn near certain he was being thrown off the trail he’d been trying to follow since the Senator’s election. If someone up the ladder had the nerve enough to place an old friend in his path, there was no way all his subtle digging hadn’t unearthed something worth exposing.

 

In twenty minutes of driving, they rode through the downtown districts and cut past streets teeming with life as the afternoon dragged on into the evening. The darkening sky streaked with purple, like velvet, fell heavily against a skyline of rooftop lights, the buzzing orange glow of the Western Auto sign in the rearview mirror.

“So,” she began, “You’re not with the Marshals’ office anymore.”

“And you left special ops,” Mustang chortled, “Things have changed since Bagram.”

“A promotion is change, getting deployed is change, but a whole new career track, all for a hunch?” She couldn’t help but laugh, “It’s a little much, even for you.” 

Mustang heaved a breath, abstaining from response.

“I have to say, Colonel, if there’s any man in this world who deserves to be called a dog, it’s you,” she flashed a thin smile. Hawkeye eased the car to a stop at the edge of a residential street, backing into a parking spot against the curb. “I swear, ever since basic training, you’ve been hunting one thing after another like it’s instinct.”

He’s heard the lecture before, not that she’s ever deterred him. In fact, the few times they’ve had the opportunity to work side-by-side, Hawkeye had always been his anchor. Whatever strange truths there were to be discovered from his endeavors in the Senate, he’d need all the help he could get. Mustang turned his gaze out the window to his right, catching view of the streetlamps which illuminated with the setting of the sun, “I’m not a Colonel anymore,” he grinned, “You’re not the only one with a new title, Hawkeye.”

“Right. Forgive me, Mr. Mustang,” she laughed. “My oldest habits are the hardest to kill.”

“Speaking of dogs,” he muttered, “how’s Hayate?”

“He’s fine,” she said. Hawkeye took the keys from the sedan’s ignition after she parked it, eyes fixed on the row of houses lining the street perpendicular to their position, “Unlike some, that dog does as he’s told.”

“Every dog is different, Hawkeye,” Mustang sighed, “There’s no need to generalize.”

Hawkeye didn’t pay his retort any mind, lowering her head as a figure emerged from the house across the way. A young woman in black, dark hair obscuring her profile, walked with caution to a car parked in the driveway before getting inside. She idled there for a moment, then backed out onto the street and drove up the street in their direction. “Right on schedule,” she quietly noted. 

In the moment, Mustang tensed. Was she a contact? An informant? He couldn’t, just yet, bring himself to question the nature of Hawkeye’s surveillance aloud, but he watched her concentrate her gaze downward as the woman drove past. In a fleeting moment, he caught the young woman’s stare. Dark, tired eyes bore into his own. For the briefest second, he felt his heart twitch with fear, but it wasn’t his own. It was the alarm of a cornered animal, overwhelmed with the urge to protect—an empathetic pang of chilling discontent that dwelled below the surface of his skin. Her fear; it was a sensation that came from somewhere beyond his own body, a feeling evoked by a single glance. As his stunned moment of distraction subsided, Mustang peered at the back of her car through the rearview window. The tail light flickered as she turned down the next road and disappeared down the next road.

He turned to Hawkeye, “I think it’s about time you told me what I’m here for,” he suggested. Without yet answering, Riza drew in a breath and reached back into the seat behind her to fetch an abused file folder, thick with paper, handing it to him. Mustang accepted the file, opening it to skim the contents. 

“I’ve been on this assignment for the last two years. Right around the time Bradley ran for Senate, I was ordered to keep an eye on this family,” she said.

Thumbing through documents, he found himself in a state of astonishment at what the innocuous folder contained; picture after picture of children labeled with their corresponding names, photocopies of surveillance notes, a printed cache of archived emails, signed non-disclosure statements, contracts—and a scanned copy of a birth certificate belonging to one Warner Klaus Holman, attached to a petition for legal name change. Warner K. Bradley, the senator from Vermont. Every documented scrap of his identity rested in Mustang’s lap. The transparency of it all was enough of a shock to leave him speechless. 

“His family,” Hawkeye reiterated. “Lucy Grace Holman, Graham Avery Holman, Evan James—formerly Everly Ann—Holman, Sloan Terrance Holman, Percy Selim Holman, Glen Charles Holman, and their father, Adam Stanford Holman, who’s addressed as ‘Ford’ in every document,” she said.

Roy was silent as she listed their names, scrutinizing the horde of pictures. Six children and an older man, figures appearing over and over again in each photograph before he recognized one of them as the Senator—and then another; a dark-haired boy with the same, cold eyes, peering up at him from the page. Bradley as a child. His heart pounded, and the sudden realization of a larger conspiracy made his legs go numb. He had to scoff, of course, at the notion of a greater plot—what circumstances could possibly be dire enough to constitute all this? What on Earth gave motive to such a convoluted paper trail? Even if he could make off with this evidence, what was it evidence of, a privileged Senator living a double life? Was it financially motivated, or just some primal impulse to absorb power? The questions were coming too quickly, cycling and snowballing faster than he could keep up with. 

Mustang looked at her with bewilderment, “This is absurd,” he groaned, “I don’t even know where to begin.”

She took the file from his lap, her expression steely and unflinching, “This is bigger than hush money and tax fraud, Colonel,” Hawkeye admitted. “Bradley went to extremes to keep his family out of the picture. He’s been sending them money, paying people off in the hundreds of thousands to keep this under lock and key,” she explained. “He’s not the same man we served… or maybe this was his true self all along. Either way, this has ‘conspiracy’ written all over it.”

He straightened himself in the passenger seat, moving his legs as if to assure himself that they were still attached to his body. He couldn’t process any of this with a clear head, too many worrisome possibilities clouded his better judgement. Maybe stunning him in such a manner had been planned from the start, or perhaps the higher-ups really did trust him enough to keep a secret; one worth committing felonies for. 

“I don’t like this,” he muttered, “All this money being funnelled back and forth, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.” 

Hawkeye stowed the folder, “I don’t like it, either. I feel this urge, deep inside me, to dissent… but if there’s anything worth exposing in this scandal, I want to see it through to the breaking point,” she confessed. “I’ve had my suspicions since day one and, now that you’ve been transferred here, I’m convinced of something.”

“What, exactly, do you think is going on?” Mustang asked.

“Bradley is sending both of us a warning,” she answered mournfully. “Like a twisted game of chess, we’re all playing a role. You and I, we’re pieces on a game board to him,” Hawkeye silently gritted her teeth.

“What are your duties, if I’m supposed to follow your lead?” Roy cocked his head. 

“He put me in charge of these kids, his siblings. I have to make sure they don’t violate the terms of their mutual agreement but, should I step out of line, the consequences were made clear to me,” she told him, “Insubordinates will be disposed of.”

“He can’t silence you,” Mustang protested, “You’re a federal agent,” 

Hawkeye pressed her lips into a fine line, the corners upturning as she smiled flatly, “Officially, I’m on leave,” she said.

Mustang’s face fell, “They’re paying you off the books?”

Hawkeye nodded, her eyes tired and wistful. For a second, as they looked at one another, Mustang’s fretting and the dire circumstances of their reunion were forgotten. What mattered more was the mere fact that they had finally reunited. She’d almost lost her sense of place before Mustang spoke again and drew her from the depths of her reminiscence. 

“So,” he began, “they know these ‘terms’ of agreement?”

“Only Lucy Holman understands the full extent of it,” Hawkeye corrected, “Though, I suspect they all have some inkling. Their whole lives were uprooted. Three years ago, Bradley made arrangements to move them here as he climbed the political ladder, but he’s been making tactical moves to distance himself from his own family since his first term as mayor.”

Mustang huffed, anxiously thumbing the switch of the window regulator. What he wouldn’t give for a smoke to ease the nauseating tension in his gut. Still, he exhaled as if he were passing the drag from a cigarette. “Surely you don’t stalk the house all night,” he lamented, watching the rooms lit up after the darkness of night settled in.

“No, not usually, no. I’m only checking up… but, when Lucy leaves for the night, I do wonder what becomes of those kids.” She placed her hands on the steering wheel, idly drumming her fingers against its pleather shell. Hawkeye smirked, “You’ll never guess who we planted at the older sister’s workplace to keep an eye on her.”

Roy chuckled, though exhaustion tainted the smile he returned her, “Yeah, who?”

Her grin persisted, “Jean Havoc.”

“Really?” Mustang turned in his seat, “Damn. I assumed he’d be halfway around the world backpacking by now,” he shook his head. “He’s undercover?”

“I’d hardly call it that,” Hawkeye pursed her lips with a fondness she felt the urge to suppress, “He isn’t even working incognito,” she added.

“Well, you know Jean…  Falling on his ears, orders are merely suggestions,” Mustang laughed, though his face soon fell. “What’s his place on Bradley’s chessboard?” 

She frowned, “From what he’s told me, it sounds like he’s expected to enforce the terms of agreement,” Hawkeye shook her head again, “but, I’ll be honest, it feels like entrapment.”

“And some of this feels like witness protection,” he quipped. 

Hawkeye turned her head to glance at him, then returns her gaze to the Holman house, “We both know this isn’t witness protection.”

In the brief moment of quiet, Mustang looked at her. Hawkeye’s form was still framed by rigid shoulders, her eyes pensive and locked in concentration. She was unlike any sharpshooter he’d met during his only tour abroad. As he’d once thought, she had the eyes of a killer—eyes which had seen the face of death, staring forward into darkness. Just like her namesake, his Lieutenant was a bird of prey on the battlefield; her bullets like talons piercing targets with cold precision. Looking at those same eyes now, plagued with doubt, it was clear this assignment had changed her. 

“You seem worried,” he remarked.

“I am,” she replied. “I’ve combed through that file every night since my relocation. I know the names of each Holman child, the names of their friends, I know what they buy at the grocery store, their grades, their daily routine. But I don’t know them—we’ve never, not once, exchanged words,” Hawkeye gulps, silently and subtly, but a trained eye would see her jaw tense and know Riza Hawkeye felt fear. She moved her eyes, looking to Roy, “I’m afraid for them, Colonel.”

The concern she had spent so long tactfully concealing finally rushed to the forefront with her words. He couldn’t possibly fault her for such a tone. Truly, nothing good could come from a plot that cut so deep into the chasms of the nation’s politics. Being offered trust enough to access the Senator’s darkest secrets, he had to wonder if this were bait. Risky, obvious, and even absurd, but bait nonetheless. Were their movements being monitored? Their place in this house of cards being scrutinized for the slightest waver in devotion to the man in charge? Perhaps this was like a strategy card, meant to disorient them. 

In any case, it seemed the Holmans were in danger and Mustang realized, with horror, that this was no mere house of cards. It was a high-stakes game of Blackjack and, in matters of blackmail and the betting world, the dealer always won.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you who've been keeping up with me for the past few months, I re-changed Havoc's name back to Havoc from the 'modernized' Haddock I originally tried... it didn't fit right. I'm already changing so many names with the characters of the homunculi, so I don't think I'll do it with the others.
> 
> Again, thank you so much for reading. Please feel free to interact with me via [tumblr](https://www.cornheck.tumblr.com/) if you're curious to know about some of the plans I have for future chapters. Bless you for being patient with me; I'm a full-time university student with two part-time jobs and fandom / fanfic is something I do to de-stress, I'm just happy to get to share it online, even if it's just for myself... but kudos and feedback are more than appreciated!


	4. Law of Vacant Places

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Evan joins Graham and Marty to explore an abandoned high school, unaware that they are being watched.

The dyeing process is almost a ritual, with idle chatter to pass the time. Evan lets Marty tend to them, darkening their hair in fine layers before it’s all done. Running through it with their fingers, they can still detect the faint tones of warm green persisting, though it’s far less abrasive on the eyes than the mess they’d made of it before. Until they could evade Lucy’s sharp eyes, wearing it tucked back would have to suffice. 

“If I were you, I’d touch it up in a few days,” Marty sighs. She dries her hands off on a towel stained with several years’-worth of dye and bleach stains, “It’ll hide the green.”  
“Thanks,” Evan nods. They’d be remiss if they didn’t trust her judgement. Given how much attention she put into her own roots, Marty was the closest thing to an expert they’d ever consulted. 

“You know, if you really wanted to lighten it up right, I’d be more than happy to do it for you sometime,” Marty turns her attention back to the cabinet under the sink, stowing bottles of product as she speaks. “I’ve been doing my own hair for years, It’d be nice to get my hands on someone else’s for a change. Your brother never lets me touch his, though,” she snorts, tossing the dye-stained pair of gloves into the wastebasket, daintily pinching them between her fingers and letting them fall.

“Are you talking about me?” Graham’s voice precedes his footsteps, head peeking in through the bathroom doorway from the hall. 

“Just a bit,” Marty notes. 

“Oh, I heard,” he laughs, “Trust me, I’d let you mess with my hair all you wanted if Lucy weren’t so uptight,” Graham takes another step, standing beside Evan and offering his hand to help them up. 

They take it, though hesitant, and are pulled to their feet by the aid of their brother. After patting off their hands, Evan crosses their arms, “Maybe we should get going,” they say. “It’s almost noon.”

“I know,” Graham assures, “I was watching the clock.” He looks to Marty, a smile growing as he met her eyes, “But, if you wanna join, I was thinking maybe I’d check out that abandoned school,” Graham suggests, extending the invitation.

Marty’s brows perk at the notion, “Are you thinking of tagging it? I bet Dane wouldn’t mind joining us, too.”

“We have to be home before Lucy leaves for work,” Evan protests, intending the comment for their brother, though Marty can’t help but interject.

“Don’t worry,” Marty says, making an attempt to placate Evan’s concerns, “We’ve got, what, three hours? It’s plenty of time,” she adds. 

For a moment, Evan almost pleads with their brother to skip the outing, to play it safe and go someplace else. The urge isn’t strong enough, however, to coax Evan into saying anything to dissuade them.

“You don’t have to come with us, you know. You can do whatever you want,” he says, frowning.

The way he said it, Evan could feel him holding back a pointed remark. He didn’t have to vocalize it for them to know what he thought, of course; it was an unspoken accusation of cowardice to provoke them. 

“No,” Evan replies, succumbing to their brother’s unspoken pressuring, “I’ll come with you.” 

Graham’s frown subsides, a grin replacing it. “Tell Dane to meet us there,” he looks back to Marty before disappearing from the bathroom doorway. 

Evan sighs as Graham leaves, hesitant to follow after him, but takes exit after Marty. 

 

They all pile into Marty’s Chrysler, an old maroon car with a duct-taped front bumper. Graham and Marty dominate the front seats while Evan squeezes into the back, buckling in as if for their life. When Marty finally starts the car and backs out of her driveway, given how steep it is, it felt less like driving and more like guided falling.

The ride is, to Evan’s relief, uneventful. With hardly anyone else on the road, there aren’t as many people to crash into. As much as they preferred Marty to their brother’s other pals, she certainly wasn’t without her faults, impulsive driving being one of them. Every time they approached a stop sign, she skirted right through it  as if it weren’t there. It isn’t until they reach a massive, brick structure on a hill that the tension in Evan’s shoulders vanishes. 

The old Westport High School is a four-story building that sits on raised foundation, the front steps leading up on either side of it to an ornamented front door. When it still functioned as a school, there was no doubt it was a magnificent building, probably state-of-the-art in its own time. But now, with cracked glass in the windows and wood boards screwed to the other sides of its front doors, it leaves a far creepier impression on passers-by. 

Marty parks her car further down from the front doors, right alongside  the rolling tracts of green held behind four walls of chain-link fences that used to be a soccer field. The goal posts still stand at either end, rusting while the sun-bleached nets tear from their ties. They’re even more hesitant to leave, as reluctant as Evan had been getting into Marty’s car in the first place, though they get out after their brother.

As Graham and Marty ascend the sidewalk’s steady incline and cross through the building’s side lawn, Evan folds their arms in front of their chest and hurries behind them. Their eyes dart from the ground to Graham to the edge of the school house roof, lined with stone and topped with ridged curves like the fancy frame of a painting. The closer they continue to get to the front doors, the more imposing the sheer size of the building becomes, towering over them until they step into its shadow. As Graham and Marty stop at the top of the front steps, Evan has a chance to catch up, stepping around the nettle plants poking through the overgrown cement. The front doors are painted a striking blue color, the windows of which are covered from the inside with particle board. Looking up at the windows above them, Evan finds several others reinforced in the same fashion, boarded-up to preserve whatever remained of the interior.

Marty tests the front doors, groaning to herself as she gives both of the handles a hearty tug at the same time only for them to be locked. “Damn,” she pursed her lips. 

“Why don’t we try a window?” Graham asks, looking to either side of the doors at the nearest ones. “The glass isn’t even reinforced, they’ll be easy to break.”

Evan grunts uneasily, “What about the noise?”

“There’s no one around,” Marty reasons, “and even if someone hears us, it’s not like they’re going to do anything.”

“And the glass?” Evan continues, holding their crossed arms tightly against their chest.

Graham sighs, “Just mind your head and hands, you’ll be fine.” He crouches at the nearest window to the front doors, looking in with his hands cupped around his eyes. “There’s a little bit of a drop, so be careful,” he warns, backing away from the window’s stone ledge. Graham scans the ground for something to smash it with, bending down again as his sight locks onto a chipped edge of sidewalk. 

Evan groans inwardly as their brother hefts the broken cement wedge in one hand and steadies himself against the windowsill with the other, watching as he lurched forward with it, easily shattering the large pane of glass through the middle with the sharpest end of the pavement chunk. 

Despite bracing themself for it, the piercing sound of breaking glass still makes Evan jump for a moment, turning around where they stand and scanning the scene in all directions just to be certain no one else has heard them. 

Graham carefully drags the concrete wedge up and down in the window frame, working away at all the shrapnel and glass shards that remain. He takes his time at the edges, Marty now stripping out of her flannel overshirt to swipe it over the bottom and dust away the sharpest debris. Once she’d finished sweeping off the base of the window ledge, she bunches the shirt and eases herself through the window backwards, her hands gripping the fabric as she slips inside. 

Only a moment passes before Graham follows her lead, discarding the broken corner of sidewalk before inching backwards through the broken window. “Come on, Evan,” he beckons. 

“Can’t I just stay out here?” they ask, “Don’t you guys need a lookout or something?”

Graham chuckles, “Trust me, it’s way more suspicious if you’re just sitting outside,” he brings his hand up, patting the bottom of the window sill where Marty’s flannel shirt still softened the edge. “It’s easy, just keep your head low.”

Evan gulps but, as he sees them hesitate once more, Graham pats his palm against Marty’s shirt. They’re not so willing to kneel on the grass as they crouch, tucking their hands into their sweatshirt sleeves and using them like padded mits, ducking down through the window and resting one knee after the other on the flannel-covered window frame and crawling through the window at an agonizing pace. 

Once they’re finally standing on two feet, Graham is quick to snatch Marty’s shirt back from the window sill, giving it a generous shake before handing it back to her. “See?” Graham asks, “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

Evan narrows their eyes, looking to Graham, “Isn’t one of your other friends supposed to meet us here?”

Marty gives her shirt another few rough flaps as she slips her arms in through each sleeve. “I’ll have to text Dane n’ tell him to come in the same way.”

Graham starts moving, walking out into the open hall of the ground floor, stepping over linoleum tiles torn up from the hardwood floor that has warped and swelled over the years. “We have to wait for him, anyway, if we want to tag anything,” he says, “Dane’s got all the good Krylon cans.”

Marty steps past Evan, minding her footing carefully, the floor creaking beneath her weight. “Damn, this place really stinks,” she chuffs, “It smells like mold.”

“Probably is,” Graham breathes deep, taking in a great whiff of the place. “That, and mildew,” he adds.

Evan lags behind both of them, running their hands across the metal doors of lockers as the three of them approach a toppled set of velvet ropes which were all meant to be situated in a triangle outside the auditorium doors. On the ground are tiny floor tiles arranged in a mosaic, the image of a tiger staring back at them and standing atop a large blue ‘W’. 

Marty is the first of them to try the handle of the auditorium door, happy to find that it has been left unlocked, grinning as she opens it. Graham and Evan file in after her once she enters, the rest of their exploits in the building continue in this fashion for the next half an hour before Marty finally hears word back from Dane while walking the length of the abandoned gymnasium.

“ _ On my way _ , he says,” Marty relays from her phone to the Holmans in her company, “He won’t take long,” she smiles, tucking the device back into her pocket. 

Graham hums a sound of concurrence, “Did you tell him about the window?”

“Actually,” Marty answers, “I told him to meet us around the back,” she gestures to the brown double-doors at the other end of the gym. “I’m pretty sure there’s a door down that hallway that’ll go out towards the field,” she adds.

“If you say so,” Graham mutters. “I don’t want Dane getting lost and wasting our time.”

They keep walking, slowly. Windows line the gym on one side, high on the wall near the ceiling, sunlight shining into the massive room like a spotlight beam catching all three of their shadows on the opposite wall as they cross the basketball court. Evan squints, shielding the left side of their face from the sun, feeling for their phone to check the time before realizing they’d left it at home. “Are you sure you should even be doing this?” Evan asks, “I mean, we’re already trespassing, and you want to throw vandalism on the pile, too?” 

“Evan, it doesn’t even matter,” Graham sighs. “This whole building is gonna be turned into apartments, anyway. The whole place will get stripped and repainted, graffitied or not,” he replies. 

“Besides,” Marty backs him up, “If the landlords can afford to replace all this rotten wood and water damage, they can afford to paint over a little bit of spray-paint,” she explains. 

Evan subtly shakes their head, rolling their eyes as Graham and Marty continue walking. Graham tries the double-doors at the far end of the gym as they approach them, the metal push-bar giving under the weight of his hands. The door opens into another hallway, this one void of locker to make room for trophy case after empty trophy case. The cases, which were, no doubt, once full with awards and trophies galore, are mirror-backed. 

For a brief second, Evan jumps upon spying their own reflected visage, nearly mistaking it for another person. The others don’t notice, Evan is relieved to observe, as they walk toward the light streaming through the windows of another door at the far end of the hall. They can hear Marty muttering to herself, and to Graham, “Is this the way…?” as if she were suddenly unsure of her previous assertion. 

They begin following after them when a loud succession of bangs from around the corner of the corridor’s end, where Evan stands, floods the hall with sound. This time, the others certainly notice Evan’s startled jump as they whip around to face the source of it. 

Graham is the first to move towards it, almost breaking into a sprint when a second round of them rips through the hall. He chuckles as he turns the corner, met with another door down the middle of the passage, rapping against its metal frame with heavy, pounding knocks. 

Marty passes a hesitant Evan on her way in the same direction. “That must be Dane,” she seems to groan. Before Evan can begin to follow, the banging knocks cease and another voice is heard, laughing deeply. 

Graham holds the door open, metal hinges squeaking as Dane steps through. Evan catches sight of him as they emerge from around the corner of the previous hall. 

“You’re lucky we were already back here,” Graham says, “or you would’ve been waiting out there for a while.”

“Yeah, well, at least it’s nice out,” Dane snorts. 

Marty snatches a worn canvas tote from his hand, gasping, “You brought a lot,” she laughs. “We only need, like, three cans, dude...” she shakes her head. Holding one of the bag’s straps in her hand, Marty digs in the bag of cans, all of them clinking together as she sifts through them. 

Dane lets her take it from him, stuffing his hands into the front pockets of his shorts. “Find any good spots, yet?” he asks, looking to Graham, then to Evan as they started creeping closer.

“A few,” Marty replies. 

Dane’s eyes dart back to Evan again. “I didn’t know you brought someone else,” he forces a smile, raising his eyebrows. “Who’s this?” he asks.

“That’s Evan,” Graham answers, “They’re just my little sibling.” 

Dane nods, perhaps showing his approval, and returns his attention to Marty, snatching a can of red Krylon from the bag, already walking the length of the hall in the opposite direction from whence the others were headed before he arrived. Graham and his friends don’t bother sticking together; they spread out, but not too far, keeping Dane within earshot as they maneuver through the halls. 

Evan stays near Graham to the best of their ability, however. They don’t share the same, unspoken language he does with Dane or Marty. They have to keep their brother in their sights, though nothing was stopping them, now, from looping back around to the ground floor and weaseling out of the window they came in through. Nothing except, of course, for a reasonable fear of pain. The moment they heeded their brother’s words, they should have realized there would be no turning back once they committed to joining him. 

“How much longer are you guys going to be walking around, doing nothing?” Evan asks, speaking under their breath to Graham without the expectation of a reply. “This is taking forever,” they huff. 

“Soon,” Graham answers sternly, “I already promised you we’d get home in time, so stop pressing me about it and shut up.” 

The jabbing response is enough to get Evan to silence their complaints. And, as he’d promised, by the time it was three o’clock, Graham, Evan, Marty, and Dane had all left the abandoned school, the sun still shining when they emerged, just as bright as it had been when they entered. It was innocuous enough, but the three of them, plus Evan, had just gotten away with some of the pettiest offenses any of them had ever been responsible for. The two Holman siblings would go home as if nothing especially different, let alone illegal, had transpired today. Evading his sister’s obsessively controlling reach gave him more thrills than any drug or crime ever could. 

Rebelling for the sake of rebellion, throwing caution to the wind and daring to be caught, Graham toed the line with Lucy, their father, Warner K. Bradley, and, unbeknownst to him, the pair of eyes watching him from an inconspicuous sedan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Something else I'll add about this fic (in regards to my notes from previous chapters) is, on top of it being mostly self-indulgent, it's also a way for me to experiment with writing in present-tense. If anyone finds this too annoying, I apologize in advance, but I do intend to maintain it because, as someone going to school for both creative writing and cinema/screenwriting, writing in present-tense is considered the screenwriting industry-standard and I've struggled with it for several years! This is a writing exercise in present-tense writing, drama-writing, and you all get a nice, long fma modern au fic out of the deal! I think that's fair.
> 
> As always, please don't hesitate to [hit me up on Tumblr](https://cornheck.tumblr.com/) if you're enjoying this fic/series because it truly warms my heart to get feedback! ...Or just... asks about FMA... I also approve of those in general.

**Author's Note:**

> I feel like I'm in over my head writing a modern AU with changes to various storylines that are as ambitious as this, considering I've only just seen FMA:B one time earlier this month and am currently re-watching it now, but I was really inspired to make something and I need the practice as someone whose writing-genre of choice is poetry, screenplay and theatrical script format, and creative nonfiction, I need to get acquainted with prose and fiction once again... and stop rushing everything. In any case, I can only hope you enjoy what I'm sharing!
> 
> Regarding the way I've chosen to categorize this work, I want it to be known that I am rating it in accordance with what I believe mentions of drug use, self harm, depictions of violence, etc. is covered by. The works I'm pulling from for inspiration, like _Ozark_ and _House of Cards,_ are rated 'Mature' or 'R', etc. so, like with most fic, please pay attention to the tags and/or notes posted for each chapter and remember to take time for yourself away from this piece if you find yourself triggered by any of the content.
> 
> Contact me on [my tumblr!](http://www.cornheck.tumblr.com) Thanks for reading.


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